Spelunking
by TripA
Summary: Set in the early couple of episdoes when STAR Labs is trying to figure out Barry's powers. Things of course go wrong! hurt!Barry
1. Chapter 1

**Hi all!**

 **I used to have an account on here ages ago, but forgot the password and could not reset it because I ALSO forgot the password to my email address (whoops). But I'm back with a new story as I've been rewatching _The Flash_ with my family, who became completely addicted recently. I've been following and scrolling through _The Flash_ FanFiction archives for quite some time now, and am very pleased with a lot of it! I feel like there's an infinite amount of stories and timelines that can be written, and I'm excited to be contributing to the stream.**

 **So without further ado, here's** _ **Spelunking**_ **!**

* * *

As oxygen flew into his lungs, he felt his chest painfully swell until he long exhaled like air slowly leaking out of a flat tire. He knew he was laying on the ground-cold and unforgiving. How long had he'd been there? While it had seemed like ages, he really had no clue whatsoever. No light passed by his dry and crusty eyes, no sounds hit his ears. He was uncomfortably alone.

He wanted to get up, call out, do something, but even in the absolute darkness he felt like everything was shifting all around him. He did not take this as a good sign, knowing that being dizzy even when laying down was never something to cheer for.

Trying to stretch out, his boot-no wait, his bare toes-hit a rough surface. He felt a vibration shake his whole body and he pulled away spooked. But it wasn't his foot that made this sensation, it was something bigger.

Another vibration.

Another.

Another.

The vibrations kept getting bigger and bigger until he felt a wind go over his ear and cheek. A second later he felt a sudden pressure on his arm. He opened his mouth. And his throat went raw from a scream he did not hear.

* * *

 ***a couple hours earlier***

Barry, Cisco, Cailin and Dr. Wells were all standing next to their van at an abandoned airport. It was a breezy and sunny day, the kind that made you want to go to the beach and crack open a cold beer as the waves rushed onto the shoreline. But the newly-formed gang was not going to the beach today; however, they were testing Barry's speed and seeing what he could do.

He had only woken up from the coma a week or two ago, and was very eager to discover what his new abilites had in store for him. Although scared at first-and still a bit nervous-he had begun to warm-up to the idea that he was undoubtedly the fastest man alive.

Cisco and Caitlin unpacked a few things from the van, and he knew they were ready for him when Cisco spoke up.

"Okay Barry so I'm going to fly this drone down the tarmak but here's the catch: it's gonna target you with these heavy-duty Nerf darts. The aim-of-the-game is to not get hit. Got it?"

Rolling her eyes at Cisco's explaination, Caitlin added, "and I'm here to monitor your vitals and make sure Cisco doesn't try to kill you. We still don't know what you are and aren't capable of!"

"Dr. Snow, do not worry too much, I'm sure Mr. Allen here will be just fine," Dr. Wells chimed in.

"Yeah Caitlin I got this don't worry!" Barry said as he flashed a smile in her direction. "C'mon Cisco, give me a countdown," he added as he hunched down to get ready to sprint.

"Okay! 10, 9, 8, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!" And with that Barry was speeding down the tarmak as the drone followed and aimed at him.

"You do realize you forgot half of those numbers right?" Caitlin remarked.

"You know I get excited, Cait."

And with that Dr. Well sat and chuckled at his coworkers as Barry flew up and down the tarmak managing to avoid dart after dart.

* * *

After about ten minutes of this back and forward game, Caitlin nodded at Cisco and Dr. Wells. "His vitals seem normal, well for him, but that's probably enough for today. Cisco why don't you slow the drone down and bring Barry back to us?"

"Ahhh the fun was only just getting started! Fine...," Cisco muttered in response. He moved his fingers on the controller's toggles like an expert Super Smash Bros. player, looking up to the sky at the drone. A few seconds later; however, his face became fused together as he concentrated harder.

"Cisco...," Dr. Wells questioned this change of expression.

"Um well... the drone isn't following my commands anymore. It's not slowing down."

"CISCO!" Caitlin cried out, wirrng around to face him. "Fix this!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Cisco responded, esasperated.

It was in that moment when the drone took off in the opposite direction at top speed, gettng farther and farther away from the trio.

"Oh boy..."

* * *

"What the heck is Cisco doing?" Barry thought to himself as the drone took off on a course that was not along the tarmak. "Maybe he's really trying to test me." And with that he took off after the drone, his displacement growing as he ran.

With the world blurring around him, he had no idea how far he had gone off the beaten path, but eventually, the drone made a sudden turn back in the direction that he had come from. Barry registered this change and tried to make it himself, but he felt his feet fumble as he assumably tripped. Soon after, his legs were in the air above him and the sun was the wrong way up (or maybe he was) and then he flew into darkness. It wasn't long before that his mind became just as blank as the scenery around him.

* * *

 **More to come later! I have not decided yet if I will be on a "regular" updating schedule like a lot of the stories that I read, so maybe there will be a schedule and maybe I'll just update as I go. We will see!**

 **Please review and thanks in advance! :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Welcome back to another installment of Spelunking! This one is pretty short, but the next couple chapters will be longer I promise!**

* * *

As Barry disappeared from sight, Caitlin and Cisco started freaking out.

"We should have put a tracker on him," Caitlin practically shrieked.

"Why. Won't. This. Thing. Work?!" Cisco grumbled.

"He'll come back," Dr. Wells remarked, completely calm.

The twenty-something year-olds continued pacing around. Caitlin found that Barry's vitals were still showing up on her panel, and well, Cisco looked like he was about to smash his controller onto the ground.

Minutes later, the drone soared back into sight. Cisco was still angrily trying to control it, but to no avail. Eventually, it smashed into the ground a couple yards from them and a billow of smoke arose from it.

"Damn it!" Cisco shouted. "That was one of my new ones, too!"

Caitlin's eyes were glued on her panel as she gasped and remarked, "You can make a new drone, but not a new Barry. His vitals just dropped. His glucose is extremely low and so is his heart rate. Something must have happened. We need to find him. NOW."

Wells was still freakishly calm. "Cisco, can't you get a map of where the drone has been? Maybe that would help us find Mr. Allen."

"The drone would have had the data stored on it's hard drive but well...," Cisco gestured to the pile of smoke.

Caitlin was bustling about packing all of her things back into the van. "Guys get in-we'll have to drive in the general direction that the drone came from and hope that it leads us to Barry."

* * *

They drove and drove and drove with no clue where they would end up, where Barry would be.

Every once and awhile they'd get out of the van shout for him and wander around a field to see if there were any traces of the speedster. Nothing.

"His vitals were bottoming out only a half hour ago," Caitlin spoke up. "But we still need to find him ASAP. He could be seriously hurt."

Cisco did not want to respond to this scary thought, so instead he continued yelling, "Barrrrrryyyyyy," and the top of his lungs.

Still nothing.

They got back in the van and drove a bit father. They soon came around a bend to find a steep slope that led down to a cavern by a stream.

"I'll watch the van," Dr. Wells said, knowing he would not be able to get his wheelchair down the hill. "You guys check down there for Barry."

"You really think he could be down there?" Cisco remarked. "Why would he follow my drone into some creepy dark cave?"

"It's worth a shot though. I'm starting to get really concerned about him," Caitlin responded.

So off Cisco and Caitlin went into the cave. They had found two flashlights in the back of the van. The one was running out of batteries and had a very thin yellowish light. But they figured it could still help so they took it with them.

It wasn't long after they entered the cavern that it went pitch black. They shone their flashlights about their surroundings and continued their mantra of "Barrrrryyyy" until their throats hurt.

Passing stones, stalagmites, and stinky puddles alike, they had probably gone about three hundred feet through the darkness.

They were just about to turn around when they saw a pile of moss in the corner between a couple stalagmites. Upon closer examination they discovered it was not moss, but hair.

Wells' hunch had proven right. There was a figure sprawled on the ground about ten feet in front of them. They ran towards the body of none other than Barry Allen.

* * *

 **Please review and I'll see you all soon! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

"Barry?" Caitlin whispered as she and Cisco got closer to his unmoving body. She bent down next to his torso and put her ear next to his face to check for breathing. His eyes were wide open, but they looked severely unfocused. Probably a concussion.

"Is he... dead?" Cisco said from his standing position a foot away.

"No, he's breathing. It's a little unsteady. But he's breathing." Caitlin responded and she slowly set her hand on Barry's arm to see if he would respond to her touch. "Barry, can you hear-."

And with that a gut-wrenching scream echoed out of his body. He thrashed about trying to get away from Caitlin. Stunned, she pulled away as Cisco took to holding down Barry's shoulders to attempt to keep him still. Once Caitlin recovered from her shock, she too helped to hold him down, grabbing at his waist.

"Barry, it's Caitlin, you're okay now. Barry?" The thrashing continued, although weaker and less frequent. "Barry can you hear me?"

He had turned over his head, his cheek pressed to the cave's floor. His eyes had closed, and the screaming had been reduced to whimpering as Cisco, who was kneeling over his head, realized that there was a puddle of blood that was caking in his hair.

"Hey Caitlin," Cisco started, "he's bleeding pretty bad up here."

"Shit," she muttered in response. She tore off her cardigan and handed it over to him. "Try to stop it, but don't press on it too hard. We need to get him back to the lab, I can't properly assess the damage on him without the right equipment."

Cisco tied the cardigan around the base of Barry's head, wrapping the arms around the front of his neck. He softly moaned in response.

"Hey man, can you open your eyes again? You need to stay awake; we don't know how bad this wound is." Barry's mouth opened in response to Cisco's request, but nothing came out.

"He's not replying to aural stimuli. We really need to get back to S.T.A.R."

"I'll grab him up here if you take his legs?" Cisco suggested.

Caitlin nodded at this suggestion. "Let's get him out of here"

* * *

Barry had no idea what was happening.

There were suddenly weights holding down his shoulders and hips, restricting his movements and not allowing him to escape. He could not see who, or what, was doing this.

He was aware that everything was hurting him: every time his leg thudded on the ground or when his arm flailed helplessly. His head though hurt worst of them all, and he slowly realized that all this moving around didn't help.

As soon as he stopped moving, the weights lifted, and he let his head roll sideways. All of the agony of pain and trying to escape whatever was holding him had exhausted him, and he could feel his mind start to muddle.

He was vaugely aware of something on his head and neck, irritating a sore spot he didn't realize he had. He felt himself cringe as he fell deeper into the waving sea that was his brain.

The pressures returned, but this time under his shoulders and below his knees. He felt terrified again, wanting to cry out, but he felt his body move against his will, and he fell back into the darkness.

* * *

They had gotten Barry back to S.T.A.R. Labs fairly quickly.

After he was situated on one of the cots, Caitlin got busy taking scans and x-rays and blood and doing all sorts of other things.

Cisco and Wells didn't speak to each other, only watched from afar as the only female of the team worked swiftly on her patient.

Once Caitlin finished, she walked over to her co-workers. "He's stable for now," she said. "The MRI I did on his brain showed a bit of swelling and definitely a concussion, but we won't know more until he wakes up again."

"We should probably call Joe West," Dr. Wells put in his input. "Tell him what happened."

"I got it," Caitlin dialed him up, explaining that there had been a training accident and that they had Barry stable and situated at the lab.

Cisco knew he couldn't do much, so he took another look at Barry and went back to his desk to fiddle with some new software he had installed. Wells disappeared, and Caitlin went to wash up and change her clothes. Joe showed up with Iris about an hour later, claiming that they had run into traffic. Iris' eyes were already red from crying as she ran over to her best friend's bedside. Joe pulled up two chairs for them and rubbed his daughter's back as she tried to stifle her tears. She hated seeing Barry unconscious again. She had been told he had fallen down the stairs, and that it was presumable that the effects of the lightning and coma had yet to wear off, making him collapse. She stroked her hand up and down his arm as she tried to process all of this.

All they could do was wait.

* * *

 **Let me know what you think! I have already started working on the next chapter :)**

 **I have also decided on not having a normal update schedule, as this will allow me to post when I please and (hopefully) get chapters out to you guys quicker!**


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